The present invention relates to medication dispenser apparatus, and particularly to such apparatus which automatically dispenses the medication according to a predetermined programme. Two embodiments of the invention are described below for purposes of example: one embodiment is an individual dispenser for dispensing the medications for an individual patient; whereas the second embodiment is a group dispenser for dispensing the medications for a plurality of persons, such as in a hospital ward.
For maximum effectiveness, medications, such as pills, tablets and capsules, prescribed by physicians should be taken at the times and in the quantities prescribed. However, with the large number of medications some persons have to take, persons frequently forget to take certain medications at a prescribed time, and as a result may skip a dose, or take the dose too close to the time when the next dose is to be taken. This not only substantially reduces the effectiveness of the medication, but is also wasteful of expensive medications and may also be harmful to the patient.
Further, when medications are given to groups of patients, such as in a hospital ward, the medications prescribed by the physician for the individual patients are usually recorded by the nurses, subsequently obtained from the dispensary, and then distributed at preselected times of the day to all the patients. These are all very time-consuming operations for the nurses who are usually extremely busy with many other tasks. Moreover, such operations are prone to human error. In addition, there is no effective way to check what medication a patient actually received, in case an error occurred in filling a prescription for example.
An object of the present invention is to provide medications dispenser apparatus having advantages in the above respects.